Book Lovers' Magazine

The Magazine that connects book lovers with great books.

You are here: Home / Archives for Buyer's Guides

Summary & Analysis of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by ZIP Reads

By

Summary & Analysis of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by ZIP Reads

***UPDATED SINCE THE CAPTURE OF THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER!***
In her chilling and exhaustive true crime memoir, Michelle McNamara traces the trail of the Golden State Killer–a man who viciously raped and murdered dozens of people in California more than 40 years ago–and who evaded police just as long.

What does this ZIP Reads Summary Include?
– Synopsis of the original book
– Detailed Chapter-by-chapter summaries
– A guide to the detectives, victims, and crimes linked to the killer
– Gripping retellings of some of the original murders
– An in-depth editorial review
– Special addendum covering the capture of the killer
– Background on the author

About the Original Book:
In I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara leaves no stone unturned in her decade-long search for the Golden State Killer. Teaming up with detectives and amateurs alike, this case seemed to affect everyone who got close to it. Her book is expertly crafted and immediately draws you in. It is part memoir, part true crime novel, and will have you checking your locks before you go to bed.

DISCLAIMER: This book is intended as a companion to, not a replacement for, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. ZIP Reads is wholly responsible for this content and is not associated with the original author in any way.

[Read more…]

Summary & Analysis of Factfulness by ZIP Reads

By

Summary & Analysis of Factfulness by ZIP Reads

Hans Rosling challenges everything you thought you knew about the world in his groundbreaking book, Factfulness.

Think you know what percent of the world is vaccinated? Or many people have access to electricity? Rosling proves that whatever you think, you’re most likely wrong. Learn how to fight your own personal bias and get a more realistic perspective on the world with Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think.

What does this ZIP Reads Summary Include?
– Synopsis of the original book
– Rosling’s original quiz to help determine where your world view stands
– The ten “instincts” that lead us astray
– Detailed guidance on how to fight the instincts
– Anecdotal evidence of damange the instincts can have
– Analysis of troves of Rosling’s data to paint a clearer picture of the world
– Editorial reivew
– Background on the author

About the Original Book:
In Factfulness, Rosling has compiled a life of work and research into a call-to-action for reason, rationality, and data. He argues that most people assume the world is worse off today than it was in the past, and that this is patently false. Using decades, and sometimes centuries, of data, he systemically counters many common notions held today–that the world is more violent, that more people live in poverty, and that population growth is not truly exponential–to name a few.

DISCLAIMER:This book is intended as a companion to, not a replacement for, Factfulness. ZIP Reads is wholly responsible for this content and is not associated with the original author in any way.

[Read more…]

Escape to Osprey Cove by Luisa Marietta Gold

By

Escape to Osprey Cove by Luisa Marietta Gold

The mystery begins with an unusual find in the secret compartment of Doug’s new Corvette. It will forever change his and Catherine’s life. Doug’s mysterious behavior after the find forces Catherine to seek escape at The Osprey Cove Lodge. What she finds at the lodge turns out to be far more valuable than Doug’s find. Follow the suspense, mystery, and romance of Book 1 of The Osprey Cove Lodge Series

[Read more…]

Jurassic Jail, The Time Wars Book 1 by William Alan Webb

By

Jurassic Jail, The Time Wars Book 1 by William Alan Webb

The Time Wars have begun!

Can you prosecute a 155 million year old murder if the victim is still alive? Peter Dance thinks he can, unless the killers get him first.

During a shady militia meeting in New Orleans, a famous scientist claims a bold discovery. The government mole in the group, known only as Gomorrah, knows he’s been tagged. He takes off with carloads of gunners on his tail.

Meanwhile, a partial skeleton turns up in a flooded Tennessee ditch, the bones brown and aged from long years buried. But something is very wrong with those bones. M.E. Sydney Hammick tries to interest D.A. Peter Dance in the mystery, but Dance now has a wife and kids and doesn’t want to play her games.

But someone nasty wants those bones, and he doesn’t care who he must kill to get them. When bullets fly, only Gomorrah can save Hammick and Dance — and the bones — from vanishing into the mists of time… or into the jaws of a long extinct killer.

Mad Max meets Bones and Jurassic Park in this explosive new time travel thriller by bestselling author William Alan Webb!

[Read more…]

Fired Up by Anna Durand

By

Fired Up by Anna Durand

He sets women ablaze, but the only one he needs may be fireproof.

Humiliated by her cheating ex, control freak Mel Thompson has resolved to avoid sex and romance. But her plans skid off the rails on her birthday, when she overindulges in champagne and tries to seduce her best friend, Adam Caras, exposing her long-repressed attraction to him. She’s determined to remain just friends, but her erotic fantasies have other ideas…

Firefighter Adam Caras has seduced more women than he’d ever admit to, earning the nickname the Arsonist, thanks to his explosive sensuality. Unfortunately, he realized he’s in love with his best friend Mel five minutes after she hooked up with her sleazebag ex. For two years, he’s kept his true feelings a secret. His libido, on the other hand…not so easy to rein in. Now that she’s free, he has a plan of his own. He’ll win her heart the only way he knows how–in bed–by employing every weapon in his lady-killer arsenal.

As best friends become lovers, they must risk everything for a chance at happiness. If they can overcome their past mistakes before it tears them apart…

[Read more…]

Harry Watt Bounty Hunter by Rob Guy

By

Harry Watt Bounty Hunter by Rob Guy

For Harry Watt, Bounty Hunter, simply doing what he’s told was never an option. When the best hydrologist on Earth goes AWOL after first helping himself to some company funds, Judge Headlock, Harry’s employer and nemesis, instructs him to bring back the runaway to face justice.

A trip to Mars onboard one of the new ships with the StrateLine Drive sounds like fun, but Harry soon discovers something stinks about this job, and it’s not one of his socks. He realizes he must first travel to Venus Station, but it’s not easy to be in two places at once. And getting framed for murder doesn’t help matters.

So with the help of his dead partner, an erstwhile assistant, and a host of lady friends, Harry embarks on a rip-roaring ride through the Solar System in a bid to prevent a Martian civil war, and maybe earn a few credits along the way.

[Read more…]

Buyer Beware by Colleen Charles

By

Buyer Beware by Colleen Charles

I said I could do casual…and swore I’d never fall in love.

I lied.

I know all about her type.
Dirt poor. Check.
Gold digger. Check. Check.

Marcella’s hot as hell and just as intriguing. I live in a swanky Vegas penthouse on top of my equally posh boutique casino. She’s lived in a dilapidated seventies trailer far too long to have patience for billionaire playboys like me that can just snap their fingers and have women fall at their feet, begging to be dominated. She stands for everything I despise. Which is why my obsession with her makes zero sense.

She’s innocence incarnate…I’m the guy who steals it. I can have anything I want, whenever I want it.

And I want her.

Marcella Castillo needs to be taught a lesson. She thinks she’s not the kind of girl I can buy and sell. She’s wrong. But somewhere along the line, the boundaries blur. In my heart, I feel a newfound tenderness and vulnerability that I’ve never known. This woman pulls at my heart strings until my solid walls come tumbling down and I let her in. And I’m happy.

The happiest I’ve ever been since my dad took himself six feet under leaving me with four younger brothers to raise.

Until a vicious sociopath and a haunting secret from Marcella’s past threatens to destroy every single thing I’ve just sold my soul to possess.

[Read more…]

Time Is Irreverent by Marty Essen

By

Time Is Irreverent by Marty Essen

AN IRREVERENT, LIBERAL, TWISTY, TIME TRAVEL COMEDY!

What if you could make a change to history that would eliminate the Spanish Inquisition, American slavery, World War II, global warming, and an egomaniacal US president who thought he was smart enough to drop nuclear bombs here and there without negative consequences? What if that change also made the United States and 5 billion people poof from existence? Would you do it?

When alien time travel specialists, the Krichards, learn of President Handley’s game of dodge the mushroom cloud, they race to Earth to investigate. For them, the question of whether it’s worth it to change history is easy to answer, but they will only proceed if the human they deem best qualified to represent Earth agrees to make the change. Erasing Handley’s nuclear annihilation would require a quick jump to AD 31 to make a simple correction to the past. If the Krichards had selected a brilliant scientist or an elite athlete for the task, Earth might be in good hands. Instead they selected Marty Mann, a mildly successful travel writer, whose only superpower is not taking life too seriously. What could possibly go wrong?

Spanning from the Cretaceous period to 2056, Time is Irreverent is a hilarious, thought-provoking satire, with unpredictable twists, colorful aliens, huge dinosaurs, a smokin’ hot lesbian from the future, and a cameo from Jesus Christ himself!

[Read more…]

The Man in the Blue Fez by Rik Stone

By

The Man in the Blue Fez by Rik Stone

Victory or Death … there is no in-between

From a former death camp in the snowy Russian mountains of 1973, Jez Kord is sent into the freezing wastelands to prove himself fit. Returning to camp, the sky is filled with helicopter gunships and he watches a venomous assault end with the flaming liquid of napalm bombs swallowing up the entire complex. He makes a run for it, but a unit of Spetsnaz elitists are hot on his heels.

Jez’s wife Anna is on assignment in Turkey. Adam Mannesh and his twisted band of misfits have designs on a drug empire that Anna has been tasked to take down. Adam comes to her assistance, but betrays her. Now the only chance of survival hangs on Jez evading the Siberian pursuit.

The Man in the Blue Fez is the third book in the series of explosive Birth of an Assassin thrillers. If you enjoy suspense thrillers with complex characters and an endless flow of death defying situations, then you’ll love being drawn into these classic tales of betrayal and intrigue from Rik Stone.

[Read more…]

Monarchs and Mendicants by Dan Groat

By

Monarchs and Mendicants by Dan Groat

Beware of a man who has nothing to lose.

A Navy Seal returns to St. Louis from Afghanistan suffering from PTSD and loses everything. Homeless, he wants only to find work and be left alone, but he is drawn into a group of street people who are being hunted by a serial killer and used by the local mob boss. To save himself, he must fight his way from tragedy to triumph and lead his “friends” on a journey from despair to hope.

You will be reminded why no one makes eye contact with a beggar, but you will also discover that if you do it often enough, you may eventually stare into the soul of a king, for greatness is as often concealed by the robes of monarchs as it is by the rags of mendicants.

Travel the gritty streets and alleys of an urban area trying to find food and shelter and safety without losing your identity. Search for a meaningful future. Walk with Gifford Ulrich as he finds himself and the promise of tomorrow.

What readers are saying:
•“This page-turning intense drama will keep you questioning and wondering until the very end.”
•“A story of deep and tragic truths.”
•“Profound and moving prose that you won’t forget.”
•“Gifford is an intriguing and troubled character that makes for a fantastic read.”
•“Ulrich is better than Jack Reacher.”
•”An opening to the human soul.”
•”A novel you will long remember.”
•”I could not put it down.”
•“I wish I could give it 10 stars.”
•”You won’t know how to let go once the book ends.”


[Read more…]